On Saturday, The Washington Post published Joe Paterno's first interview since the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke in November. Those who were hoping for solid answers on how Penn State could have harbored an alleged child sex-abuser under Paterno's watch probably came away disappointed.

In the interview with Sally Jenkins, Paterno sounded many of the same themes we have heard from his issued public statements and from his sons: that he reported what he knew about Sandusky to his superiors and that he was unaware of his longtime assistant's alleged abuse until Mike McQueary brought forth an allegation about Sandusky in the shower with a boy in 2002.

The story paints Paterno as being in much worse physical condition than when we last saw him in public, the day before his firing Nov. 9. Since then, it has been revealed that the winningest coach in Division I history is dealing with lung cancer. Jenkins writes that Paterno is using a wheelchair, is wearing a wig because of chemotherapy treatments and labors to speak. He has experienced fogginess from the chemo and has had trouble eating. Paterno finished the interview Friday and was admitted to the hospital later that day for further observation.

Paterno seems aware that time might be running out for him, but he hopes he has enough time left to restore his tarnished legacy.

The story, while lacking many bombshells, adds to our understanding of how Paterno says he handled the allegations McQueary brought to him.

"He was very upset and I said why, and he was very reluctant to get into it, Paterno said. He told me what he saw, and I said, what? He said it, well, looked like inappropriate, or fondling, Im not quite sure exactly how he put it. I said you did what you had to do. Its my job now to figure out what we want to do. So I sat around. It was a Saturday. Waited till Sunday because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. And then I called my superiors and I said, Hey, we got a problem, I think. Would you guys look into it? Cause I didnt know, you know. We never had, until that point, 58 years I think, I had never had to deal with something like that. And I didnt feel adequate.

Many have wondered why Paterno, the most powerful figure in the Penn State community, didn't personally do more instead of merely reporting the accusation up the chain of command.

"I didnt know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was, he said. So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didnt work out that way. ...

"I didnt know which way to go, he said. And rather than get in there and make a mistake ...

Paterno also portrayed himself as being too much from the old world to really understand what McQueary was telling him. McQueary, the former Penn State assistant coach, testified to the grand jury that he witnessed what he believed to be a sexual encounter between Sandusky and what appeared to be a 10-year-old boy in a locker room shower at the school's football complex. McQueary has said he was reluctant to get into too many details with the then-78-year-old Paterno but that he later described in more detail what he saw to school administrators.

You know, he didnt want to get specific, Paterno said. And to be frank with you I dont know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best."

To me, that defense rings false. There's no question Paterno is from a different generation, one in which certain types of sexual behavior were often not spoken about. But no matter what age you are, you should be able to quickly ascertain that any sexual activity between a man and a child is both wrong and illegal. There aren't many ways to go when it comes to that, except to do everything in your power to stop it.

Agree. He might have been telling the truth, but I believe he left out many details. The one question I would ask JoePa would be: “When McQueery came to you about the shower incident, was that the very first time you had heard any disturbing report about Sandusky that related to children?”

Calling shenanigans on that quote. Child rape is nothing new. It isn’t something “invented” by our generation. My FIL (if alive would have been 100) knew this existed. My Dad (if alive would have been in his 80’s) knew it existed. Ask any elderly man you know if such a thing exists... he will tell you yes. The “old world” defense is very hollow. IMHO.

Since he never was actually fired by Penn State as they led everyone to believe, but is in fact negotiating his retirement benefits, I’m sure he will be getting the best of care. However the doctors may be surprised at the shriveled-up thing they ultimately find where his heart is supposed to be.

We handled things when I was a kid, There was a creep hanging out around the city yacht pier restrooms, and several of us just threw his butt off the pier one afternoon. He crawled out of the mud and never came back.

I can't understand a kid meekly submitting, but some kids just aren't raised right.

9
posted on 01/15/2012 7:12:46 AM PST
by SWAMPSNIPER
(The Second Amendment, a Matter of Fact, Not a Matter of Opinion)

You can’t be with your kids 24/7. You’ve got to prepare them for everything they may have to face and you can’t mince words. You can raise little ladies and gentlemen but you need to include a streak of badass with the ballroom dancing lessons.

12
posted on 01/15/2012 7:24:50 AM PST
by SWAMPSNIPER
(The Second Amendment, a Matter of Fact, Not a Matter of Opinion)

This is feeble spin by Joe Paterno. He can't convince me that he did not have any awareness of the act of a man raping or molesting a young boy.

My father was born and raised a backwoods West Virginia boy. He was not quite 10 years older than Paterno. He warned me as a child to be wary of men becoming friendly in public places. Especially public restrooms. I recall a case when a young boy needed to urinate in a public restroom, and asked my father to hold him up to a urinal as they were too tall for him. My father refused, but hustled a man out of a stall so the boy could go in a toilet that he could reach.

My father explained his actions to me as it not being proper for a man helping an unfamiliar boy in that way and would likely be seen as him molesting the boy (this was in the late 1960's).

My father -- of approximately Paterno's same age -- was a cautious man in that regard. When he heard of a child -- male or female -- being molested or raped by an adult, he was ready to exterminate the adult.

I think my father's awareness and actions were common for that generation. I don't believe Joe Paterno.

85 last December (born December 21, 1926). One of grandfathers was born in the Indian Territory in 1902. He could have been Paterno's father. When I was a boy, he warned me about 'friendly' men on more than one occasion.

15
posted on 01/15/2012 7:41:19 AM PST
by Scoutmaster
(You knew the job was dangerous when you took it)

When I was a kid in Newark, N.J. in the early fifties we had a perv preying on young boys. (Me & my friends) Some of us told our fathers. All of a sudden the perv was not around any more. We don’t know what happened to him. It was like he disappeared one day. I never asked any questions nor did my friends.

16
posted on 01/15/2012 7:44:20 AM PST
by certrtwngnut
(It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes. (Josef Stalin))

Calling shenanigans on that quote. Child rape is nothing new. It isnt something invented by our generation. My FIL (if alive would have been 100) knew this existed. My Dad (if alive would have been in his 80s) knew it existed. Ask any elderly man you know if such a thing exists... he will tell you yes. The old world defense is very hollow. IMHO.

Well, I here and I'm only 65 and I'm pretty sure that raping of young boys is something that never crossed my radar screen until maybe the 90s, or whenever it was that the "gay agenda" blossomed. I know the Greeks and maybe others engaged in supposed consensual homosexual acts between adults and children, but the whole idea is just so alien to me that it might be as if someone suggested that some like to eat dogsh*t.

I wasnt suggesting sheltering kids. I was arguing that when an adult rapes a kid, being twice the size of a ten year old and being their supposed friend before that isn’t easy to see coming. And no matter what, no ten year old deserves having a man shove his penis in his rear end. So onve the rape occurs, then what?

I’m not buying the “I didn’t know it existed” defense. Big towns, small towns, cities, country... it has existed and always existed. It is more “out in the open” and discussed nowadays but my own parents knew such horrible things happened. They were both raised in a very small town and it was known in those days.

Not to judge you but this is not a new concept. Perhaps it is something discussed more openly. Perhaps we do read about it more. It definitely is on television more. However, child predators have always existed. Joe Paterno didn’t live in a bubble. He lived during modern times and I don’t believe for one second that he didn’t know such atrocities could happen. Could he have possibly thought that they were more rare than they are? Yes. I will give you that but not that he was completely unaware.

My parents were born and raised in a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania and they knew such things existed. My FIL was born on a farm in rural Indiana and knew those things existed. Now, I will admit that such things weren’t in the media or openly discussed is public. However, people of older generations had the same fears/worries/about deviancy as we do today.

I once witnessed something a bit similar in a shower. I was taking a shower in the dorms when I heard the door kicked open. I heard footfalls on the floor that sounded as if people were struggling. I was washing my hair and tried to rinse soap away from my eyes. I couldn't see much of the bathroom from the shower area, but when I stood against one wall and looked through the small angle at the opening to the shower area, I saw a guy standing behind a girl with his arm across her throat. I could swear that I heard her rasping out the word "rape."

I yelled, and he let her go. I heard footsteps going towards the door and the door slam open. I imagined and maybe even heard the first step or two of her running down the hallway.

I finished rinsing my hair because if I had any trouble, I didn't want soap running into my eyes. At that time, I had more hair and rinsing took a few moments. I went to the edge of the shower area and looked out. One of the dorm floor jerks was standing smugly at the urinals relieving himself. I could tell by his posture and body language that he was all proud of himself for having bullied a girl.

That kind of stuff isn't all that uncommon in dorms. Frequency doesn't make that behavior right, but no one can stop that stuff. Idiots will be idiots, and too many stupid coeds will hang out with idiots. As I thought about whether to make a report, I realized that nothing would happen to the guy. I could hear a defense attorney asking, "So, the angle of your view meant that you could only see a slice of their bodies about four inches wide? You admit that you had to wipe shampoo out of your eyes to see at all? Would you say that the hard tiles of the shower room create many echoes and a great deal of noise from the running water? Would someone have had time to leave the bathroom and someone else go to the urinals while you were rinsing your hair?" I realized that making an issue of what I had seen was pointless.

That experience makes me wonder many things about Mike McQueary and what he saw or didn't see. He had the advantage of not having shampoo in his eyes, but what did he really see? Did he dimly see figures moving in a steamy shower and just make assumptions about what was happening or did he really see a rape? He has said since that time that he made sure that contact was stopped before leaving the room, but if he really saw a rape, why didn't he remove the victim from the presence of the rapist? I was not in a position to be sure of who was involved with what I saw. He could have been sure if he'd acted. The victim I saw was a legal adult and bears at least some responsibility for her company. I'm sure the guy would have argued that they were just joking. If there was anal sex in the shower at Penn State, no one can argue that anyone was just joking, and the victim's being a minor means that he wasn't responsible for hanging out with idiots.

Because Mike McQueary's story has so many problems, I can understand Joe Paterno not pushing things farther than he did. I can understand turning the investigation over to the university and assuming when no action was taken that they found too many inconsistencies in that story to believe that McQueary really saw anything. In spite of what everyone says about Joe Paterno's power, I can see him as a guy who didn't exercise that power but tried to keep things within proper channels. I can believe that he trusted those channels to do the right thing and is primarily guilty of misplacing his trust. We live in a society where "privacy" dictates that all kinds of things not be disclosed. If Joe Paterno didn't hear back, I can see him thinking that he wasn't told because he wasn't supposed to hear the outcome.

How very convenient when in the heat to claim being graveley ill.. John John Edwards too. Must be contagious. Jo... I guess if it would have been your ten year old, maybe winning would have been less important. As long as it was someone elses baby boy. What a bassturd.. God forgive you all.

26
posted on 01/15/2012 8:39:40 AM PST
by momincombatboots
(Back to West by G-d Virginia.)

Not to judge you but this is not a new concept. Perhaps it is something discussed more openly. Perhaps we do read about it more. It definitely is on television more.

We all know what we know. Some of us know more about some topics than others; and some apparently think they know more about what others know than these others know themselves. When I was a child, even at age ten, the whole idea of normal sexual activity was very alien to me. ("Why would anyone want to do THAT"!) To say that it's on television more misses the point. It wasn't on television AT ALL in the 50s. We had the Donna Reed Show and Father Knows Best. Now even the teasers for TV shows are disgusting and undoubtedly influential upon society. Maybe my parents were stupid too? I learned to trust adults. It came in handy sometimes when I was allowed to tour cities, and not just nearby NYC, by myself starting from about age ten.

I'm not Catholic, and I hope Catholics will not be offended by my bringing this up. I always thought a Priest was someone you could always trust. Somewhere along the way that perception changed. I think the same is true of all men. Color me naive, if you want to.

It's hard to imagine that a man responsible for the character development, as well as the physical well-being of so many young men could be so ill-equipped for the job. What is the point of sports as a metaphor for life's lessons if you won't protect them from real world evil?

The more I learn about Paterno’s handling of this, the angrier I get. He treated this heinous act like some low level DMV bureaucrat. Pass it along, and it's no longer my problem.

ml/nj: I notice from your profile page how you feel about Vince Foster and the Vince Foster investigation.

Do you know who was the head of the FBI during that investigation? Louis Freeh. Do you know who the Penn State Board of Trustees selected to conduct the 'transparent' internal investigation of the Sandusky cover-up? Louis Freeh.

Freeh has a few other 'blips' on his resume.

He personally leaked Richard Jewell's name and led the crusade to convict a man who essentially was the hero of the Atlanta Olympic Park bombings. The Justice Department recommend his censure for Ruby Ridge. Khobar Towers? That was Freeh. Wen Ho Lee? Freeh. Chinese political contributions, and the decision not to pass information to the White House on Chinese attempts to influence the election? Freeh (not that it would have done any good). Freeh was forced out as FBI director because of Robert Hanssen's spying. When Freeh became FBI director, he removed the computer from his office. If he uses email, that's a new development (doesn't believe in it). He didn't let the FBI update computers for eight years, because Freeh's not a 'computer' guy.

Freeh's the man for the Penn State job, I suppose. He has experience in looking the other way, fingering the innocent, and covering things up.

32
posted on 01/15/2012 2:17:57 PM PST
by Scoutmaster
(You knew the job was dangerous when you took it)

You know, he didnt want to get specific, Paterno said. And to be frank with you I dont know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best."

To me, that defense rings false. There's no question Paterno is from a different generation, one in which certain types of sexual behavior were often not spoken about. But no matter what age you are, you should be able to quickly ascertain that any sexual activity between a man and a child is both wrong and illegal. There aren't many ways to go when it comes to that, except to do everything in your power to stop it.

I want so badly to believe JoePa's version, but logic tells me I can't. He knew that McQueary caught Sandusky showering with a boy and touching him at a minimum. Wasn't that enough? While this was a topic that wasn't discussed in polite company, it was talked about to the extent that every grown man and grown woman knows it exists. He told the Grand Jury that "fondling" or "something of a sexual nature" was what he inferred from the brief description that McQueary gave him.

I still think that he could have done something more, and surely if this was one of his own grandchildren, he WOULD HAVE done something more. University procedure be damned. Too many people were more comfortable looking the other way, and pretending that Sandusky was an upstanding citizen, when the fact is, there were at least rumors of his deviant behavior.

You know how JoePa said of Nixon, "How could Nixon know so much about college football in 1969 and so little about Watergate in 1973?". Well, I want to know how JoePa could know so little about Jerry Sandusky, especially in 2002 and beyond. Is that too much to ask?

remember...Catholics have been tradionally taught that everyone sins, everyone has "problems" and we are not to judge...we are to forgive...

there is one long standing school of thought that these perverts need forgiveness, because their perversions were "sins" afterall..and everyone sins...

this is one reason why that tiny minority of Catholic priests who have proved beyond doubt to have been abusers, were shuffled away, not turned into the cops, given "treatment" etc...some misguided thought that prayer and treatment was all that was needed....

now we know that perversions can not be easily overcome, that pedophlia is not curable, only controlled, restrained...

I had Aunts who were born around 1900 who in their 80s didn’t even know there was such a thing as homosexuals. They grew up in New York but society was very different then and ladies (and they were proper ladies) were protected from such nastiness. Most nice families didn’t even say “darn.”

I’m getting close to 50, and I think I was in high school before I heard the word “gay” or even learned that there were such people as homosexuals.

(That said, I knew what a “perv” was from an early age - in terms of adults who prey on children - and if Paterno is claiming ignorance at his age, that’s ridiculous. He just didn’t want to roil the waters, especially since the guy involved was someone he knew.)

I notice from your profile page how you feel about Vince Foster and the Vince Foster investigation. Do you know who was the head of the FBI during that investigation? Louis Freeh.

You message is possibly more apropos than you know.

First there really wasn't any FBI investigation of the Foster matter, despite what some will claim. Clinton saw to it that the Mighty Park Police were the sole "investigators" for quite a number of months.

Maybe you've seen some of my posts where I speculate about the Government Law Enforcement folks knew and when they knew it about Sandusky (assuming he is what everyone is making him out to be). If they (like the Governor and/or the State Attorney General) knew around the same time Paterno did then Paterno would look much less guilty, or at least no more guilty than all the people who stood silent when Vincent Foster was murdered.

Think about the conflicted motives of a Pennsylvania politician who might bring to the surface a scandal which would rock one of the State's most beloved institutions. (I'm thinking of Penn State Football here.) It might have unpleasant repercussions for that politician. Maybe better to find some way to contain the scandal?

And so who better than Louis Freeh who was appointed, maybe for a similar purpose by Bill Clinton, a month and a half after Vincent Foster was murdered?

That's all fine and dandy. If Sandusky would have disappeared from Paterno's and Penn State's radar at that point I could possibly side with Paterno and accept his "explanation".

The problem is, Sandusky was still allowed to hang around. he was still allowed to bring boys over. He was still tied to Second Mile (as was Paterno). It was obvious that nothing was done about him. Ever think a follow-up might be in order? Did Paterno not have the power to at the very least kick Sandusky off the campus?

We live in a society that values "privacy." If we report some kind violation of policy in most of our workplaces, we are not told what action is eventually taken. The rationale is that the disciplinary action is between the company and the employee receiving discipline. I don't fully agree with that policy or the rationale behind that policy, but I have to abide by the policy. To ask those in authority to give me an update would be a violation of policy on my part.

If the university investigated and decided that Mike McQueary was mistaken in what he saw, then nothing would have happened. Knowing what we do today, we have every reason to believe that Mike McQueary saw what he claims, but Joe Paterno wouldn't have known that at the time. If he saw Sandusky still using the facilities, he would have assumed that the accusation turned out to be wrong. If the investigation turned up that McQueary had lied about the whole thing, then the only disciplinary action may have been against McQueary and again, no one would have told Joe Paterno.

Until last fall, Second Mile was a respected charity in Pennsylvania. The university would have wanted to work with a respected charity that was doing good things for disadvantaged kids. If McQueary's story was so full of holes that they still didn't suspect Sandusky, then they wouldn't want to dump a respected charity on the basis of what seemed at the time to be a flimsy rumor.

No, I don't think Joe Paterno had the power to kick anyone off the campus. Why would any school give that power to a football coach? Even if Joe Paterno had the prestige to bend the rules and have things done the way he wanted, his history shows that he wasn't the type of guy who always wanted to bend the rules to exercise personal power. He had hearsay testimony about something that happened. He never pretended to be a criminal investigator. He turned over the information to those who were supposed to be qualified to investigate.

The story that Mike McQueary brought to Joe Paterno was weaker than the accusations that Anita Hill made against Clarence Thomas. We've now learned things that suggested that McQueary may have been right while most of us believe Hill was lying, but at the time, Joe Paterno had no way to know these things. Do you go on crusades against individuals based on such poor evidence? I don't.

You have youself pretty twisted up trying to support Paterno. Good luck with that. His "story" is full of holes, but he's got you suckered.

Paterno is evil. He looked the other way while young boys were being raped. he was told about those rapes and failed to report it to the police. Everyone involved somehow beleived it wasn't their problem and no one took responsibility. To equate this with Clarence Thomas is ridiculous, but telling, in that apparently no amount of rationalising is too much.

No, I’m simply smart enough and independent-minded enough not to join in witch hunts. You are a herd animal. The herd walks in one direction, and you follow. The herd bellows for something, and you open your mouth and bellow. If you find yourself falsely accused someday, you may come to regret that so many people are herd animals. If you ever ruin someone’s life over false accusations, I’d wish that you had the conscience to feel guilt, but I’m guessing that you don’t. As long as the herd approved at the time, you probably feel justified.

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